


Pause for Reflection

by violetsarefuckingpurple



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Fantasy High
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family, Family Feels, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Riz is getting emotionally tortured in this after all, Team as Family, warning for mentions of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 06:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetsarefuckingpurple/pseuds/violetsarefuckingpurple
Summary: "He struggled at first to remember what had happened. The crown. It sat heavy on his head, invisible as the rest of his surroundings but throbbing with ancient, terrible power. He squinted his eyes in the blackness, both to paw through his still blurry memory and to try and see anything. No memory stirred, nor any visible object. He sat there for he didn’t know how long, suspended in abject nothingness. Then the mirrors came."





	Pause for Reflection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isthepartyover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isthepartyover/gifts).

> For isthepartyover. This isn't a continuation fic so much as a, "I saw an angsty world and I wanted to write it too" kinda thing. I too have not had the ability to watch season 2 yet, so this is literally nothing like what canon no doubt is, it's more a fic based on a fic. I had a lot of fun writing it though. Angst is just such a good time to write in general, but I really loved isthepartyover's ideas and had a visceral need to write my own version so thank you for giving me permission hon and I hope you enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed your continuation of my piece. Anywho, here we go!

It started with darkness. Darkness that seemed to stretch on forever, both physically and in time. Riz could see nothing, hear nothing. That was all it took to start the panic building in his chest, the seed of doubt and fear. Had he gone blind and deaf? Had the world simply ceased existing? Was this inky void all that was left to him at all? He struggled at first to remember what had happened. The crown. It sat heavy on his head, invisible as the rest of his surroundings but throbbing with ancient, terrible power. He squinted his eyes in the blackness, both to paw through his still blurry memory and to try and see _anything_. No memory stirred, nor any visible object. He sat there for he didn’t know how long, suspended in abject nothingness. Then the mirrors came.

Splintering shards of light pierced his eyes white and silver and blinding. It took him a while to see past it too, an eternity - a moment - both? Closing his eyes didn’t help; the light was all encompassing. It was _inside_ him and _outside_ him and_ painful_ all around. Eventually the light faded, or his eyes adjusted, and he was able to make out the endless fractal plane of amorphous glass beyond him. His head pulsated with burning pain, hot and tender against the still too bright world he was trapped in. He felt dizzy and sick, nausea roiling in his gut. In the mirrors, hundreds of images flickered and churned in a way that disoriented him even further. He struggled to stand, to run away, but his legs were made of jelly, his feet heavy stones, and his arms bound in iron shackles. Hopelessness and agony crashed over him like a sheet of glass similar to the billions of shards on all sides, shattering against his back and sending jagged slivers deep into his flesh. He screamed until his voice gave out and his ears rang (an hour, two?) but it didn’t help to alleviate the pressure of fear in his throat. He was helpless and aching, chained and weak in an endless void. Things couldn’t get much worse.

At least his friends would come for him soon. They had to have noticed his disappearance by now and once they got over the bout of panic that would bring them, they would rush to follow the clues he had blathered on about to them for the past few weeks and fight their way to his rescue. They were his friends and he knew they would stop at nothing to save him. After all, he would do the same were their situations reversed.

**********************************************************

He must have misjudged how long he had already been there. It had felt like ages, but it was hard to tell with no change in scenery but for the images in the mirrors growing clearer and more vibrantly colored. Minutes or hours or days (but of course not days really, his friends wouldn’t leave him there for _days_ it just felt that way because time was weird here) seemed to pass. It couldn’t really be taking_ that_ long for them to find him, could it? He had talked about this case so much, even written them letters in invisible ink about some of the cooler clues he had unearthed. Riz’s internal clock must just have been really off because his friends, motivated by his disappearance and provided with a near step-by-step recount of how he had found the crown in the first place, had to be practically whipping through this case to find him. They would be there soon. He just had to be patient a little longer and not let his skewed sense of time mess with him.

**********************************************************

Of course, all this rescue mission certainty relied on the fact that his friends cared about him. Which of course they did! Of course they did. It was just that if they hadn’t cared to listen to him when he was talking about the clues, or far worse, if they didn’t care enough to notice he was missing at all, he was basically screwed. But of course that wasn’t the case. This place was making him crazy was all, paranoid. “Don’t be stupid,” he scolded himself “Of course they care, of course they’re coming for you.” However, as innumerable time ticked on that became harder and harder to believe.

See, before the Bad Kids, he’d only ever had the one friend. And sure he had unraveled the mystery of the palimpsests desperately to save her, but he didn’t have much reference to know how normal that determination was. Certainly he had already liked mysteries, and certainly the other Bad Kids like mysteries less. They would investigate things when they had to, but it wasn’t as much as a drive for them as it was for him. He had eaten, breathed, and dreamed in question marks since the day he was born. Riz wondered if Penny had ever had the same worries about never being found, no one even looking. Having been inside a palimpsest himself, he could see the similarities between the fractal planes. He _had_ come for Penny though. And when _he_ was the one in the palimpsest his friends had come for him too. It was only a matter of time before they came now.

**********************************************************

He wasn’t sure he had time. The images were nearly discernible now, though he didn’t know how long that had taken. He was starting to feel weaker, drained, as if the chains and crown and mirrors were… eating his life force. His insides felt hot and sticky like his organs were melting. He coughed and and bile clogged his mouth, foul smelling and coppery with blood. Even spitting it out took monumental effort. He sagged wetly into the floor, energy sapped. The shackles were tight and searing, but the floor -- while sharp edged and horribly bright -- was cool against his cheek. Riz coughed again, a damp - feeble thing. Nothing else came up. When was the last time he had eaten? Just how the hell long had he been here?

Where were his friends?

**********************************************************

They never came. Hours that were definitely hours because he counted the goddamn seconds as best he could, and days that were honestly probably days, passed and his friends never came. He could barely twitch his fingers anymore he was so weak with hunger and exhaustion and pain and something else far more sinister. The images were a cacophony of bright colors that tore at his pupils till he swore they bled. He couldn’t lift a hand to check though. Not that uncertainty mattered much anymore. In fact uncertainty was infinitely kinder than the reality that he was pretty sure he was going to die here. Alone. There was nothing left to vomit, but a frail burble of saliva slickened stomach acid spilled from his lips. He couldn’t even heave, let alone wipe it away. It just pooled by his jaw, slimy and rank, and trickled wanly along the curve of his neck and into his hair. His friends never came.

**********************************************************

“Riz? Riz, oh honey!” his mom’s soothing voice poured like the sweetest water in the desert over him, tinged with worry. Riz couldn’t lift his head to look at her, but with every ounce of strength left in his body he forced a tiny burst of sound out of his throat.

“M-ma--”

“You’re ok, you’re ok. I’ve got you.” Her hands, callused like his but gentle as no one else’s could be, brushed careful and loving through his matted curls. Suddenly he was a little boy again, hot and sweaty with fever or nightmare, clinging childishly to nothing but his mom’s presence. Safe. He was safe. It didn’t matter that his friends never came for him because Sklonda had, Sklonda always would. He loved her more than anything in the world. Betrayal and hurt sat heavy in his stomach where food should have been, but that was all ok because his mom was there and everything else could work out after that.

**********************************************************

It was maybe three hours later that he realized he still wasn’t moving. He called out to his mother, voice broken and raspy with disuse, but there was no reply. As if she had never been there at all. (She hadn’t been.)

**********************************************************

The second and third specters he was more wary off. Gorgug and Fig burst through a wall with a cascade of sharp glass fragments. Gorgug’s chest was heaving, his face red with an obvious rage. Fig looked similarly pissed. She clutched her base with a ferocious scowl and her dark eyes scanned the void of mirrors for anybody to bludgeon with it. They were just within view of his sideways vantage point pressed against the floor, and he shut his eyes, praying they wouldn’t see him. They weren’t real, he couldn’t bring himself to hope.

“Shit Riz,” Fig murmured when her horrified gaze fell upon him. Gorgug looked ready to throw up, which really wouldn’t have been helpful considering how much empty bile Riz had been spitting up for the past few days. In an instant, they were dropping to their knees beside him, Fig already strumming her base for a little bit of a healing spell. It wasn’t much, but it washed over him like so much warmth and goodness he wasn’t quite sure he wasn’t crying.

“We only just managed to bust in,” Gorgug gasped, all watery puppy-dog eyes himself. “Are you ok? We’re so sorry! We were so worried!” Fig nodded vehemently and hastily wiped some tears of her own away from her cheeks.

“Yeah. I know I may come off as really cool and aloof, hard to read ya know, but I actually really really care about you guys. You’re kinda like a little brother to me Riz, you know that? And, I mean you may think it’s really hard to scare someone so tough and untouchable as me, but just the thought of losing you really tore me up man.” Riz wanted to splutter a small laugh, but all he could manage even with the heal was a weak cough. Still, he counted that as good enough. Fig and Gorgug stared down at him with matching looks of pure relief and worry.

‘You’re like a sibling to me too, Fig.’ he wanted to say ‘I love you both so much.’

**********************************************************

At first, he wondered why the Nightmare King’s crown would possibly be giving him good dreams. Then he realized it probably hurt a thousand times worse to give him a taste of salvation and then take it away rather than just show him all his worst fears. In all honesty, having these new friends and then losing them probably _was_ his worst fear.

**********************************************************

Adaine stumbled into his line of sight, hair wild, jacket torn, and an injured Kristen slung haphazardly over her shoulder. The pair of girls staggered clumsily forwards, not even noticing Riz at first. Adaine was the first one to when they did. Her crystal blue eyes, one underlined by a trail of thin red scratches across her cheekbone, fixated on him as she gasped. Kristen, half unconscious against her, had to blink a couple times to focus on him. They both collapsed next to him, Adaine with a small grimace of distaste for the days old sick and Kristen with only a bleary - belated huffing sound at finding herself seated on the ground. She didn’t look good, a wide stain of crimson flowering across her middle. Her skin was pale and slick with sweat, her eyes glazed and distant.

“You need to heal yourself, Kristen.” Adaine snapped as calmly as she could manage. Her breathing was beginning to pick up and Riz ached to hug her and whisper encouragement until the panic attack passed.

“R’z nee’s i’. ‘M fine.” Kristen slurred, very obviously not fine. Riz could say nothing, even as he screamed internally for her to heal herself, take a goddamn nap and he would wait for her replenished ability to heal. Her hand descended on his shoulder before Adaine could even think to protest and Riz’s body was flooded with buzzing warm light and endorphins. This light was nothing like the light of the mirrors. It was good and pure and Kristen (and maybe YES? But even Kristen had yet to figure out that one).

Then Kristen was falling, limp and pale with bloody auburn hair, and Adaine was screaming, breath too quick and eyes wild with horror.

**********************************************************

The worst thing was that while the fake Kristen died, Riz could feel nothing but the euphoria of her magic. It wasn’t until after that the gory image set in with full emotional impact. Kristen died, and it was his fault, and he was_ happy_. He hated himself for it, dream or no. Suddenly he wished his friends wouldn’t come looking for him after all. Their deaths were an even worse fate than his lonely one he had been busy fearing before.

**********************************************************

“The Ball! Found you at last.” Riz couldn’t bare to open his eyes this time. He couldn’t bare to see the fake Fabian’s face, feel the burgeoning hope it would no doubt bring. “Riz?” Much quieter now, and so obviously a lie because Fabian _never_ called him by his real name, but the word sounded so pretty and soft and worried on Fabian’s tongue, and Riz was so very weak. “Please look at me.” It was impossible to deny him.

Fabian (not Fabian, remember he’s not Fabian) was a little battered, but not really all that worse for the wear. His moonlight colored hair was artfully tousled from what was likely a fearsome brawl, his chestnut skin was glowing but barely even damp with sweat. He looked heart-achingly concerned and like he was trying to hide it.

“There you are,” he said with a slightly forced but still so fucking sweet and genuine smile. From somewhere deep within the very pit of his being, Riz dredged up enough moisture and energy to start sobbing messily. Embarrassing. Oh yes, what a great way to impress the coolest person you know Riz, get trapped in a magic mirror, starve half to death, and then sob like a pathetic child into his arms. That’ll definitely work. Fabian didn’t look disgusted by Riz’s tears or appearance though. He looked almost tearful himself, but that Fabian never cried. Riz felt himself be scooped carefully into Fabian’s lap as if he was made of the finest china. His head was tilted back with a warm steady hand on his chin so their eyes would meet. “Never do that to me again.” Fabian growled softly, and then he was kissing him.

For a moment it was the sweetest thing in the world, safety and warmth and love like Riz had never even wished for before. And then Fabian began to taste of blood and ash. The scene blurred at the edges and everything went black for a second, and then Fabian was sprawled atop Riz, crushing his ribs under his weight, and there was an arrow in his back and blood pouring from his mouth and fire dancing over his back.

“Your fault,” Fabian choked out, soft eyes going pained and accusatory. “I hate you, I hate you. I’m dying and it’s your fault.”

“No! Nonono, Fabian! I love you, don’t die.” Riz was fairly sure he didn’t say out loud. Fabian sneered.

“As if I could ever love you back, The Ball. Me, a rich popular handsome half-elf with a weedy poor little pathetic excuse for a goblin like you? Please. I wish I had never met you, let alone come to save your weak ass. Your life is no where near worth mine.” Riz agreed full-heartedly. He was choking on tears and wailing with air he didn’t have in his lungs when Fabian’s lips crashed down onto his again. The kiss was bruising and bitter and tasted of nothing but blood and bile and death. Smoke wreathed the pair as they tangled together, and soon Riz was on fire as well. He was crushed beneath Fabian’s dead weight and he couldn’t breathe and his flesh was entirely aflame with agonizing heat. All he could do was kiss back and accept the vitriol dripping from Fabian’s tongue. Everything hurt but it didn’t matter, none of it mattered. Fabian hated him,but was kissing him, but was dying, and everything was so hellishly fucked, and Riz wished more than anything that he could just die here because he couldn’t handle this. Anything but this. Anything.

**********************************************************

The nightmares and terrible visions bled together after a while. Fig snarling with feral eyes, the only survivor of his rescue party. Kristen torn to shreds by the glass as she tried to reach him through the wall with desperate hands, hatred burning her eyes all the while. Gorgug stomping on his ribs in a frenzy, chanting some crime of Riz’s that he couldn’t understand past the pain. Adaine coldly and efficiently slicing his skin to ribbons with knives of jagged ice. His mom limp between dragon teeth, charred black and stained red where there should have only been green. Fabian, always Fabian, loving and hating and dying all on the same breathe, fire and venom and salve mixed in his every touch. Riz shook and sobbed and spat bile and tears and crumbled to a shell of a boy and wished for death to swallow him, for the darkness to return at last. Eventually, after days, weeks, a year, an eternity, the darkness did return, and Riz sank into it blessedly. Finally, relief from his eternal waking torment of nightmares. Blissful blackness where once the silent void had brought him terror. Merciful death.

**********************************************************

Riz awoke slowly, and wished with every fiber of his being that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t do this again, he couldn’t. He had nothing left to give, no fear, no misery, no love, no energy. He had nothing. He kept his eyes firmly shut and ignored the tug of wakefulness at his consciousness. He had thought he was free. He should have known better. He was never going to be free. The floor felt different beneath him now, squishier. Did that have something to do with the images? He had lost track of their strength after a while of losing his own. Now that he thought of it though, the air smelled different now too, cleaner and strongly of lemon antiseptic. What new level of hallucination had he reached?

Curiosity winning over in spite of himself and his fierce need to not hurt anymore, Riz opened his eyes just a crack. He appeared to be lying in a crisp hospital bed with white sheets. What passed for his mom sat in the chair to his left side, slumped in sleep with bags beneath her eyes. In various states of sprawl littered around him on chairs and coat bundles on the floor were the approximations of his friends. Perched on a chair at the foot of his bed, the fake Adaine met his gaze squarely and her eyes went wide.

“He’s awake!” She hissed once, and then louder “He’s awake!” The crowd burst out of sleep in a flurry of movement, his not-mother jolting upright and leaping to her feet to fuss over his damp brow, illusion Kristen squirming up out of her comfy position on the couch to stare at him dumbfounded, ghost Gorgug sitting up on the floor and promptly bursting into messy tears, spirit Fig lifting her head from illusion Kristen’s legs and her torso from ghostly Gorgug’s knees and blearily gazing at Riz with a wounded - worried pout. Definitely not real Fabian, who had apparently fallen asleep in the chair by Riz’s right side in his blind-spot when he first woke up, squeezed his hand, which was apparently clasped in his, as he woke up as well.

“Finally!” Not Fig huffed seemingly annoyed, though her eyes were alight with relief.

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” The mirage of his mother leaned close to him and smoothed some of his ivy colored curls away from his sticky brow. A lump formed in Riz’s throat, bitter and aching. He swallowed as best he could around it, trying his best not to cry. He was so tired of crying. Wasting precious water over lies. Soon these visions too would turn on him, or die for him, or both, and he would return to the reality of endless glass and friends that never - ever- came for him. The hand in his hair ceased moving, and he realized slowly that the mirage was waiting for his reply. The lump got bigger. He didn’t want to talk to them. It would make it harder when everything fell apart again. And he wasn’t certain he could talk anyway, anymore. Still, he never could ignore his mother when she asked him a question. Just as she never ignored him when he had one. It was an unspoken agreement between them and fake or no Riz couldn’t bare to ignore it now.

“My head hurts,” his voice warbled unused and scratchy from his throat “And I miss you.” He almost broke saying that part, it hurt so bad seeing her like this, close and loving, and knowing he was never going to see the real thing again. He was going to die in a void of mirrors and Sklonda Gukgak would never have even been able to say goodbye to her only son.

“What do you mean you miss me?” The fake Sklonda asked quietly, face knit in concern “I’m right here.”

“No you’re not. You’re not! I know, ok? I know none of this is real, please can I just not have to play along?” The room of phantoms exchanged looks Riz didn’t bother to decipher, already knowing what emotion they would convey.

“Why do you think none of this is real, Riz?” Fake Sklonda regarded him seriously in an interrogative way he couldn’t help but respond to. Riz wanted to scream and bash his head wildly against the pillow in frustration, but that required so much more effort than he had left.

“Because it’s never real,” he said instead. Pain more acute than anything physical could ever be ate at his innards with burning teeth. “You’re going to disappear soon, or worse, and everyone will die or hate me, and Fabian will kiss me and _then_ die _and_ hate me, and I’ll pass out and wake up alone again. It’s been like that on loop since I got here, can we please just stop now? I know it’s not real! I can’t do this anymore, I’d rather die. I would. _Please_.” So much for not crying. His fake mother’s eyes had grown pinched with sorrowful pain. Everybody in the room was staring at him with matching expressions of agony, except for Fabian whose jaw had gone stoney. Fabian’s (not Fabian’s) hand had spasmed around his at the word kiss and grown progressively tighter the longer Riz spoke. It was practically a vice around his fingers now, and Riz was beginning to go numb.

A clamor of voices arose, protesting loudly that none of that was true, oh god Riz no, we’re real -- it’s all ok now, promise. Fabian’s voice cut across them all.

“Would you all kindly shut the hell up?! _Riz_,” There it was again, his name dripping like a prayer from Fabian’s sinful lips. It sounded almost different this time, softer somehow, more tentative, and full of something _more_ Riz couldn’t describe. God he was going insane down here. “We’re real. It took us a fucking awful two weeks to find you, and I- we - damn near lost y- our minds doing so, but we did it. Adaine and Sklonda tracked down the mirror, and Fig and Gorgug busted through, and we all had to fight a shit-ton of these weird sharp versions of ourselves, and Kristen healed you as best she could to buy us time to get you back to the hospital, but we fucking did it and you’re safe now. I- we won’t let anything happen to you ever again.” It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn't real, it wasn't real!

“But no one ever comes for me. I waited for _days_ but no one ever came. Mysteries are my thing, no one else cares.”

“Well of course mysteries are your thing!” yelped Adaine “I would very much like to live as normally as possible now, thank you, but mystery or no we care about you. Infinitely more than normal life, that is for sure.” Everyone else burbled vehement agreement, stricken at the very idea of him thinking they didn’t care about him. They pushed forward in one cohesive unit and enveloped him in a huge, suffocating hug, real as real could ever be. Oh. He was home. Really home. Safe, and surrounded, and _loved_. Riz sobbed like a baby into their embrace, and it didn’t hurt as much anymore. He no longer felt so dreadfully empty.

**********************************************************

“Uh The B- Riz, when you - when you first got back and you were, you know, _disoriented_.”

“Yes, Fabian?” Riz raised his eyebrow and turned his gaze from case file he was reading (in spite of Sklonda’s many protests) to meet his best friend’s gaze. Fabian looked… well good obviously, but weirdly nervous and shifty too. It had been almost two months since Riz had woken up on his hospital bed for the first time. He was doing a lot better, both physically and with the paranoia that this was all a dream after all and he was going to wake up. Soon he would be able to actually go home. He wasn’t mandated constant supervision, but his mom and friends had been too worried to leave him alone and he had been too terrified to be left, so they had long since set up a schedule of keeping vigale. Just then, it was Fabian’s turn. The pair was seated in a secluded but sunny alcove near the windows in the hospital cafeteria. The gentle golden rays warmed Riz, and occasionally one of his soft green ears would twitch with delight at the glorious sensation.

Fabian coughed.

“Erm, well, yes, you see… I don’t want to assume… you were somewhat out of your mind after all, but… You said I kissed you? In the dream world?”

Riz coughed. And spluttered. And turned bright blue with embarrassment.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Um- don’t worry about that, that was just -- well, ok I’ve been madly in love with you for a while now but it’s not -- I’m not going to do anything. You don’t have to be uncomfortable. I’m handling it.”

“...Ah.” There was a beat of silence during which both goblin and half-elf could not so much as look at each other without blushing and looking away again. “...What if it didn’t make me uncomfortable though?” Fabian asked abruptly.

“What?”

“What if I… was sort of madly in love with you too and really wanted to kiss you for real, like with my lips not some FUCKING ASSHOLE mirror’s version.” Fabian coughed. Riz coughed.

“Are you, um, are you offering? I can’t actually tell.”

“Fuck yeah, I’m offering!” Fabian whipped around to face him, dark skin flushed even darker, eye glinting with determination and exhilaration. Riz was the one who made the first move though. He cupped the back of Fabian’s head, ran his fingers through his tousled white hair, and dragged him down to himself. This kiss was nothing like the fake one. It was real and careful and sweet as ice cream.

**********************************************************

A pause for reflection. That was all the torturous nightmare ended up being. It seemed almost anticlimactic how little it actually affected his life. He missed a grand total of three months of school, which what with how far ahead he already was didn’t really make much of a difference. He was a little skinnier, had a little more fuel for bad dreams, and his arms had a few more scars from the chains, but otherwise… nothing. A pause for reflection that he came out the other side of happier. His friends knew his darkest fears now, and were fearsome in keeping him close and safe because of it. Fabian and he started dating, and that was a whole thing in and of itself. Riz was loved and surrounded by the people who loved him all the time now, almost annoyingly so. Except never really annoyingly, he loved them too, too much for that. He was happy. A pause for reflection, that wasn’t so bad. And then the Bad Kids adventures, as always, continued. Riz was happy.

One night he and the rest of them were curled up on Fabian’s bed watching a movie. It had been a fun night: full of victory over some maniacal dryads killing were-wolves in the suburbs, ice cream at Basrar’s, and a magnificent meal courtesy of Cathilda. Riz was snuggled squarely in between Fig and Fabian, getting progressively drowsier as the sugar high came down and the hour grew later. He felt a soft pressure against his shoulder and looked over to find his boyfriend sleeping soundly against his shoulder. He smiled and let his head tip over to rest against Fabian’s. His eyes slipped shut slowly and peacefully. The movie buzzed quietly to a close as Riz slipped away into a perfect, warm, dreamless slumber. It ended with darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, hope you enjoyed. Please read "the sight, the sound" if you haven't already, it's fantastic. Have a lovely day! <3 And leave a comment if you feel so inclined.


End file.
